[004]
JulianLapostat
Current Version
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\'\'Re. Robespierre and liberal democracy: I suppose the appropriate quote (adapted from one from the Vietnam War) would be \
to:
\\\'\\\'Re. Robespierre and liberal democracy: I suppose the appropriate quote (adapted from one from the Vietnam War) would be \\\"We had to destroy liberty and human rights in order to save them\\\". ;-)\\\'\\\'
There\\\'s StartXToStopX, or as Robespierre put it in his notorious speech, \\\"Terror without Virtue is cruel, Virtue without Terror is weak\\\". Though he did say that only applies to a Revolutionary situation and not during peace-time, Government is to be virtue only. Robert Roswell Palmer (who is hardly a Stalinist) called him one of the half-dozen prophets of Democracy at the end of the Age of Enlightenment, on the basis of that speech.
\\\'\\\'As you yourself mention in passing, the Girondins did not start the war by their lonesome, some Hébertists and Montagnards had also supported it in 1792, so one may wonder if attacking the Brissot and co. for starting the war is not to a not insignificant degree scapegoating.\\\'\\\'
Robespierre hardly launched Terror by his lonesome either, but that doesn\\\'t stop even people who know better to continue scapegoating him. The Girondins went out of their way to launch the 1792 War and they did it with a deliberate campaign of exaggeration and misinformation, and the Royal Family saw them as pawns (The Queen called them \\\"imbeciles\\\" and on this occassion I agree with her) to restore the Ancien Regime. Robert Darnton has shown that Brissot was a police spy and perhaps an AgentProvocateur. So I don\\\'t think calling him a war criminal is excessive at all. By contemporary terms, Robespierre would certainly be guilty of \\\"human rights violations\\\" for sure, even though that discourse didn\\\'t exist at the time (though the trials of Carrier and Fouquier-Tinville and Benjamin Constant\\\'s pamphlets on the same do foreshadow it).
\\\'\\\'Good intentions are not always an excuse.\\\'\\\'
Yes but it hardly counts for nothing either. And you know I am tired of the lazy invocations of the French Revolution as foreshadowing Stalin (and his kulaks) and the Russian Revolution that everyone since Furet kept doing. Albert Mathiez, the man who rehabilitated Robespierre\\\'s reputation was a staunch anti-Stalinist (and the same cannot be said of Furet in his youth as a Communist). The Communists definitely looked at the French Revolution for inspiration but many people across the world did so before them. The Chartist movement in England was inspired by the French Revolution certainly and the English in the 19th Century kept invoking fears of Revolution to bring changes there (as did many other governments). In my view the French Revolutionary excesses and the contradictions are not apart from the contradictions of nationalism in any nation, and certainly not all that exceptional or \\\"an other\\\" to inveigle against. Yes, the situtation did deteriorate for factory workers and the lower-classes but compared to the famine-run and inflationary Ancien Regime, it definitely qualifies as an improvement. The beneficiaries included shopkeepers and small-business owners in Paris and the provinces, artisans and several peasant farmers. None of that change would have happened without the revolution either.
There\\\'s StartXToStopX, or as Robespierre put it in his notorious speech, \\\"Terror without Virtue is cruel, Virtue without Terror is weak\\\". Though he did say that only applies to a Revolutionary situation and not during peace-time, Government is to be virtue only. Robert Roswell Palmer (who is hardly a Stalinist) called him one of the half-dozen prophets of Democracy at the end of the Age of Enlightenment, on the basis of that speech.
\\\'\\\'As you yourself mention in passing, the Girondins did not start the war by their lonesome, some Hébertists and Montagnards had also supported it in 1792, so one may wonder if attacking the Brissot and co. for starting the war is not to a not insignificant degree scapegoating.\\\'\\\'
Robespierre hardly launched Terror by his lonesome either, but that doesn\\\'t stop even people who know better to continue scapegoating him. The Girondins went out of their way to launch the 1792 War and they did it with a deliberate campaign of exaggeration and misinformation, and the Royal Family saw them as pawns (The Queen called them \\\"imbeciles\\\" and on this occassion I agree with her) to restore the Ancien Regime. Robert Darnton has shown that Brissot was a police spy and perhaps an AgentProvocateur. So I don\\\'t think calling him a war criminal is excessive at all. By contemporary terms, Robespierre would certainly be guilty of \\\"human rights violations\\\" for sure, even though that discourse didn\\\'t exist at the time (though the trials of Carrier and Fouquier-Tinville and Benjamin Constant\\\'s pamphlets on the same do foreshadow it).
\\\'\\\'Good intentions are not always an excuse.\\\'\\\'
Yes but it hardly counts for nothing either. And you know I am tired of the lazy invocations of the French Revolution as foreshadowing Stalin (and his kulaks) and the Russian Revolution that everyone since Furet kept doing. Albert Mathiez, the man who rehabilitated Robespierre\\\'s reputation was a staunch anti-Stalinist (and the same cannot be said of Furet in his youth as a Communist). The Communists definitely looked at the French Revolution for inspiration but many people across the world did so before them. The Chartist movement in England was inspired by the French Revolution certainly and the English in the 19th Century kept invoking fears of Revolution to bring changes there (as did many other governments). In my view the French Revolutionary excesses and the contradictions are not apart from the contradictions of nationalism in any nation, and certainly not all that exceptional or \\\"an other\\\" to inveigle against. Yes, the situtation did deteriorate for factory workers and the lower-classes but compared to the famine-run and inflationary Ancien Regime, it definitely qualifies as an improvement. The beneficiaries included shopkeepers and small-business owners in Paris and the provinces, artisans and several peasant farmers. None of that change would have happened without the revolution either.
Changed line(s) 5 from:
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\'\'Re. Robespierre and liberal democracy: I suppose the appropriate quote (adapted from one from the Vietnam War) would be \
to:
\\\'\\\'Re. Robespierre and liberal democracy: I suppose the appropriate quote (adapted from one from the Vietnam War) would be \\\"We had to destroy liberty and human rights in order to save them\\\". ;-)\\\'\\\'
There\\\'s StartXToStopX, or as Robespierre put it in his notorious speech, \\\"Terror without Virtue is cruel, Virtue without Terror is weak\\\". Though he did say that only applies to a Revolutionary situation and not during peace-time, Government is to be virtue only. Robert Roswell Palmer (who is hardly a Stalinist) called him one of the half-dozen prophets of Democracy at the end of the Age of Enlightenment, on the basis of that speech.
\\\'\\\'As you yourself mention in passing, the Girondins did not start the war by their lonesome, some Hébertists and Montagnards had also supported it in 1792, so one may wonder if attacking the Brissot and co. for starting the war is not to a not insignificant degree scapegoating.\\\'\\\'
Robespierre hardly launched Terror by his lonesome either, but that doesn\\\'t stop even people who know better to continue scapegoating him. The Girondins went out of their way to launch the 1792 War and they did it with a deliberate campaign of exaggeration and misinformation, and the Royal Family saw them as pawns (The Queen called them \\\"imbeciles\\\" and on this occassion I agree with her) to restore the Ancien Regime. Robert Darnton has shown that Brissot was a police spy and perhaps an AgentProvocateur. So I don\\\'t think calling him a war criminal is excessive at all. By contemporary terms, Robespierre would certainly be guilty of \\\"human rights violations\\\" for sure, even though that discourse didn\\\'t exist at the time (though the trials of Carrier and Fouquier-Tinville and Benjamin Constant\\\'s pamphlets on the same do foreshadow it).
\\\'\\\'Good intentions are not always an excuse.\\\'\\\'
Yes but it hardly counts for nothing either. And you know I am tired of the lazy invocations of the French Revolution as foreshadowing Stalin (and his kulaks) and the Russian Revolution that everyone since Furet kept doing. Albert Mathiez, the man who rehabilitated Robespierre\\\'s reputation was a staunch anti-Stalinist (and the same cannot be said of Furet in his youth as a Communist). The Communists definitely looked at the French Revolution for inspiration but many people across the world did so before them. The Chartist movement in England was inspired by the French Revolution certainly and the English in the 19th Century kept invoking fears of Revolution to bring changes there (as did many other governments). In my view the French Revolutionary excesses and the contradictions are not apart from the contradictions of nationalism in any nation, and certainly not all that exceptional or \\\"an other\\\" to inveigle against. Yes, the situtation did deteriorate for factory workers and the lower-classes but compared to the famine-run and inflationary Ancien Regime, it definitely qualifies as an improvement.
There\\\'s StartXToStopX, or as Robespierre put it in his notorious speech, \\\"Terror without Virtue is cruel, Virtue without Terror is weak\\\". Though he did say that only applies to a Revolutionary situation and not during peace-time, Government is to be virtue only. Robert Roswell Palmer (who is hardly a Stalinist) called him one of the half-dozen prophets of Democracy at the end of the Age of Enlightenment, on the basis of that speech.
\\\'\\\'As you yourself mention in passing, the Girondins did not start the war by their lonesome, some Hébertists and Montagnards had also supported it in 1792, so one may wonder if attacking the Brissot and co. for starting the war is not to a not insignificant degree scapegoating.\\\'\\\'
Robespierre hardly launched Terror by his lonesome either, but that doesn\\\'t stop even people who know better to continue scapegoating him. The Girondins went out of their way to launch the 1792 War and they did it with a deliberate campaign of exaggeration and misinformation, and the Royal Family saw them as pawns (The Queen called them \\\"imbeciles\\\" and on this occassion I agree with her) to restore the Ancien Regime. Robert Darnton has shown that Brissot was a police spy and perhaps an AgentProvocateur. So I don\\\'t think calling him a war criminal is excessive at all. By contemporary terms, Robespierre would certainly be guilty of \\\"human rights violations\\\" for sure, even though that discourse didn\\\'t exist at the time (though the trials of Carrier and Fouquier-Tinville and Benjamin Constant\\\'s pamphlets on the same do foreshadow it).
\\\'\\\'Good intentions are not always an excuse.\\\'\\\'
Yes but it hardly counts for nothing either. And you know I am tired of the lazy invocations of the French Revolution as foreshadowing Stalin (and his kulaks) and the Russian Revolution that everyone since Furet kept doing. Albert Mathiez, the man who rehabilitated Robespierre\\\'s reputation was a staunch anti-Stalinist (and the same cannot be said of Furet in his youth as a Communist). The Communists definitely looked at the French Revolution for inspiration but many people across the world did so before them. The Chartist movement in England was inspired by the French Revolution certainly and the English in the 19th Century kept invoking fears of Revolution to bring changes there (as did many other governments). In my view the French Revolutionary excesses and the contradictions are not apart from the contradictions of nationalism in any nation, and certainly not all that exceptional or \\\"an other\\\" to inveigle against. Yes, the situtation did deteriorate for factory workers and the lower-classes but compared to the famine-run and inflationary Ancien Regime, it definitely qualifies as an improvement.
Changed line(s) 5 from:
n
\'\'Re. Robespierre and liberal democracy: I suppose the appropriate quote (adapted from one from the Vietnam War) would be \
to:
\\\'\\\'Re. Robespierre and liberal democracy: I suppose the appropriate quote (adapted from one from the Vietnam War) would be \\\"We had to destroy liberty and human rights in order to save them\\\". ;-)\\\'\\\'
There\\\'s StartXToStopX, or as Robespierre put it in his notorious speech, \\\"Terror without Virtue is cruel, Virtue without Terror is weak\\\". Though he did say that only applies to a Revolutionary situation and during peace-time, Government is to be virtue only. Robert Roswell Palmer (who is hardly a Stalinist) called him one of the half-dozen prophets of Democracy at the end of the Age of Enlightenment, on the basis of that speech.
\\\'\\\'As you yourself mention in passing, the Girondins did not start the war by their lonesome, some Hébertists and Montagnards had also supported it in 1792, so one may wonder if attacking the Brissot and co. for starting the war is not to a not insignificant degree scapegoating.\\\'\\\'
Robespierre hardly launched Terror by his lonesome either, but that doesn\\\'t stop even people who know better to continue scapegoating him. The Girondins went out of their way to launch the 1792 War and they did it with a deliberate campaign of exaggeration and misinformation, and the Royal Family saw them as pawns (The Queen called them \\\"imbeciles\\\" and on this occassion I agree with her) to restore the Ancien Regime. Robert Darnton has shown that Brissot was a police spy and perhaps an AgentProvocateur. So I don\\\'t think calling him a war criminal is excessive at all. By contemporary terms, Robespierre would certainly be guilty of \\\"human rights violations\\\" for sure, even though that discourse didn\\\'t exist at the time (though the trials of Carrier and Fouquier-Tinville and Benjamin Constant\\\'s pamphlets on the same do foreshadow it).
\\\'\\\'Good intentions are not always an excuse.\\\'\\\'
Yes but it hardly counts for nothing either. And you know I am tired of the lazy invocations of the French Revolution as foreshadowing Stalin (and his kulaks) and the Russian Revolution that everyone since Furet kept doing. Albert Mathiez, the man who rehabilitated Robespierre\\\'s reputation was a staunch anti-Stalinist (and the same cannot be said of Furet in his youth as a Communist). The Communists definitely looked at the French Revolution for inspiration but many people across the world did so before them. The Chartist movement in England was inspired by the French Revolution certainly and the English in the 19th Century kept invoking fears of Revolution to bring changes there (as did many other governments). In my view the French Revolutionary excesses and the contradictions are not apart from the contradictions of nationalism in any nation, and certainly not all that exceptional or \\\"an other\\\" to inveigle against. Yes, the situtation did deteriorate for factory workers and the lower-classes but compared to the famine-run and inflationary Ancien Regime, it definitely qualifies as an improvement.
There\\\'s StartXToStopX, or as Robespierre put it in his notorious speech, \\\"Terror without Virtue is cruel, Virtue without Terror is weak\\\". Though he did say that only applies to a Revolutionary situation and during peace-time, Government is to be virtue only. Robert Roswell Palmer (who is hardly a Stalinist) called him one of the half-dozen prophets of Democracy at the end of the Age of Enlightenment, on the basis of that speech.
\\\'\\\'As you yourself mention in passing, the Girondins did not start the war by their lonesome, some Hébertists and Montagnards had also supported it in 1792, so one may wonder if attacking the Brissot and co. for starting the war is not to a not insignificant degree scapegoating.\\\'\\\'
Robespierre hardly launched Terror by his lonesome either, but that doesn\\\'t stop even people who know better to continue scapegoating him. The Girondins went out of their way to launch the 1792 War and they did it with a deliberate campaign of exaggeration and misinformation, and the Royal Family saw them as pawns (The Queen called them \\\"imbeciles\\\" and on this occassion I agree with her) to restore the Ancien Regime. Robert Darnton has shown that Brissot was a police spy and perhaps an AgentProvocateur. So I don\\\'t think calling him a war criminal is excessive at all. By contemporary terms, Robespierre would certainly be guilty of \\\"human rights violations\\\" for sure, even though that discourse didn\\\'t exist at the time (though the trials of Carrier and Fouquier-Tinville and Benjamin Constant\\\'s pamphlets on the same do foreshadow it).
\\\'\\\'Good intentions are not always an excuse.\\\'\\\'
Yes but it hardly counts for nothing either. And you know I am tired of the lazy invocations of the French Revolution as foreshadowing Stalin (and his kulaks) and the Russian Revolution that everyone since Furet kept doing. Albert Mathiez, the man who rehabilitated Robespierre\\\'s reputation was a staunch anti-Stalinist (and the same cannot be said of Furet in his youth as a Communist). The Communists definitely looked at the French Revolution for inspiration but many people across the world did so before them. The Chartist movement in England was inspired by the French Revolution certainly and the English in the 19th Century kept invoking fears of Revolution to bring changes there (as did many other governments). In my view the French Revolutionary excesses and the contradictions are not apart from the contradictions of nationalism in any nation, and certainly not all that exceptional or \\\"an other\\\" to inveigle against. Yes, the situtation did deteriorate for factory workers and the lower-classes but compared to the famine-run and inflationary Ancien Regime, it definitely qualifies as an improvement.
Changed line(s) 3 from:
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HoistByHisOwnPetard but that\'s usually too crude. There\'s also DidntThinkThisThrough, but that\'s sometimes seen as comedic or satirical. There\'s also JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope which I think might be what you are looking at, or SerialEscalation, where slowly things get more and more extreme until it jumps off the rails. I like BecameTheirOwnAntithesis because Vergniaud\'s full quote uses the Saturn metaphor to talk about how the Revolution will finally bring a despot to power, and you know you have well meaning people slowly using means that
to:
HoistByHisOwnPetard but that\\\'s usually too crude. There\\\'s also DidntThinkThisThrough, but that\\\'s sometimes seen as comedic or satirical. There\\\'s also JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope which I think might be what you are looking at, or SerialEscalation, where slowly things get more and more extreme until it jumps off the rails. I like BecameTheirOwnAntithesis because Vergniaud\\\'s full quote uses the Saturn metaphor to talk about how the Revolution will finally bring a despot to power, and you know you have well meaning people slowly using means that bring about the opposite of what they wanted to do.
Changed line(s) 5 from:
n
\'\'Re. Robespierre and liberal democracy: I suppose the appropriate quote (adapted from one from the Vietnam War) would be \
to:
\\\'\\\'Re. Robespierre and liberal democracy: I suppose the appropriate quote (adapted from one from the Vietnam War) would be \\\"We had to destroy liberty and human rights in order to save them\\\". ;-)\\\'\\\'
There\\\'s StartXToStopX, or as Robespierre put it in his notorious speech, \\\"Terror without Virtue is blind, Virtue without Terror is weak\\\". Though he did say that only applies to a Revolutionary situation and during peace-time, Government is to be virtue only. Robert Roswell Palmer (who is hardly a Stalinist) called him one of the half-dozen prophets of Democracy at the end of the Age of Enlightenment, on the basis of that speech.
\\\'\\\'As you yourself mention in passing, the Girondins did not start the war by their lonesome, some Hébertists and Montagnards had also supported it in 1792, so one may wonder if attacking the Brissot and co. for starting the war is not to a not insignificant degree scapegoating.\\\'\\\'
Robespierre hardly launched Terror by his lonesome either, but that doesn\\\'t stop even people who know better to continue scapegoating him. The Girondins went out of their way to launch the 1792 War and they did it with a deliberate campaign of exaggeration and misinformation, and the Royal Family saw them as pawns (The Queen called them \\\"imbeciles\\\" and on this occassion I agree with her) to restore the Ancien Regime. Robert Darnton has shown that Brissot was a police spy and perhaps an AgentProvocateur. So I don\\\'t think calling him a war criminal is excessive at all. By contemporary terms, Robespierre would certainly be guilty of \\\"human rights violations\\\" for sure, even though that discourse didn\\\'t exist at the time (though the trials of Carrier and Fouquier-Tinville and Benjamin Constant\\\'s pamphlets on the same do foreshadow it).
\\\'\\\'Good intentions are not always an excuse.\\\'\\\'
Yes but it hardly counts for nothing either. And you know I am tired of the lazy invocations of the French Revolution as foreshadowing Stalin (and his kulaks) and the Russian Revolution that everyone since Furet kept doing. Albert Mathiez, the man who rehabilitated Robespierre\\\'s reputation was a staunch anti-Stalinist (and the same cannot be said of Furet in his youth as a Communist). The Communists definitely looked at the French Revolution for inspiration but many people across the world did so before them. The Chartist movement in England was inspired by the French Revolution certainly and the English in the 19th Century kept invoking fears of Revolution to bring changes there (as did many other governments). In my view the French Revolutionary excesses and the contradictions are not apart from the contradictions of nationalism in any nation, and certainly not all that exceptional or \\\"an other\\\" to inveigle against. Yes, the situtation did deteriorate for factory workers and the lower-classes but compared to the famine-run and inflationary Ancien Regime, it definitely qualifies as an improvement.
There\\\'s StartXToStopX, or as Robespierre put it in his notorious speech, \\\"Terror without Virtue is blind, Virtue without Terror is weak\\\". Though he did say that only applies to a Revolutionary situation and during peace-time, Government is to be virtue only. Robert Roswell Palmer (who is hardly a Stalinist) called him one of the half-dozen prophets of Democracy at the end of the Age of Enlightenment, on the basis of that speech.
\\\'\\\'As you yourself mention in passing, the Girondins did not start the war by their lonesome, some Hébertists and Montagnards had also supported it in 1792, so one may wonder if attacking the Brissot and co. for starting the war is not to a not insignificant degree scapegoating.\\\'\\\'
Robespierre hardly launched Terror by his lonesome either, but that doesn\\\'t stop even people who know better to continue scapegoating him. The Girondins went out of their way to launch the 1792 War and they did it with a deliberate campaign of exaggeration and misinformation, and the Royal Family saw them as pawns (The Queen called them \\\"imbeciles\\\" and on this occassion I agree with her) to restore the Ancien Regime. Robert Darnton has shown that Brissot was a police spy and perhaps an AgentProvocateur. So I don\\\'t think calling him a war criminal is excessive at all. By contemporary terms, Robespierre would certainly be guilty of \\\"human rights violations\\\" for sure, even though that discourse didn\\\'t exist at the time (though the trials of Carrier and Fouquier-Tinville and Benjamin Constant\\\'s pamphlets on the same do foreshadow it).
\\\'\\\'Good intentions are not always an excuse.\\\'\\\'
Yes but it hardly counts for nothing either. And you know I am tired of the lazy invocations of the French Revolution as foreshadowing Stalin (and his kulaks) and the Russian Revolution that everyone since Furet kept doing. Albert Mathiez, the man who rehabilitated Robespierre\\\'s reputation was a staunch anti-Stalinist (and the same cannot be said of Furet in his youth as a Communist). The Communists definitely looked at the French Revolution for inspiration but many people across the world did so before them. The Chartist movement in England was inspired by the French Revolution certainly and the English in the 19th Century kept invoking fears of Revolution to bring changes there (as did many other governments). In my view the French Revolutionary excesses and the contradictions are not apart from the contradictions of nationalism in any nation, and certainly not all that exceptional or \\\"an other\\\" to inveigle against. Yes, the situtation did deteriorate for factory workers and the lower-classes but compared to the famine-run and inflationary Ancien Regime, it definitely qualifies as an improvement.
